Montreal inaugurates Place des Montréalaises, a landmark tribute to women

The City of Montreal inaugurated Place des Montréalaises—a bold and meaningful civic space dedicated to honouring women in the city’s public realm.

More than eight years in the making, this project led by our team, in consortium with artist Angela Silver and AtkinsRéalis, is the result of sustained, transdisciplinary collaboration. Its unveiling is a shared achievement built on dialogue, trust, and a collective commitment to reimagining what visibility and recognition can look like in the urban fabric.

The result is both landmark and living gesture: a space that reconnects neighbourhoods, brings landscape and art into public life, and restores presence to names and stories too often left out of our city’s architecture.

Among them: the 14 women lost in the 1989 École Polytechnique tragedy, as well as seven pioneering figures in culture, science, and civic life, from nurse and co-founder Jeanne Mance to physicist Harriet Brooks and journalist Myra Cree.

“This space expresses both vulnerability and strength—joy and care—and it will come alive through the diversity of city life.” – Patricia Lussier, Design Principal

With the opening of the Place des Montréalaises, the city this summer will be greener, more open, and filled with flowers—a perennial field of reflection and renewal, grounded in the legacy of 21 women whose lives have shaped Montreal’s past and future.

In a city where fewer than a quarter of public places are named after women, Place des Montréalaises is a necessary shift that centres them not as exceptions, but as integral to the story and structure of Montreal itself.

We extend our congratulations to every member of the team, whose care and creativity shaped this project over the years. And we look forward to seeing Montrealers make this space their own—and to the conversations it will continue to inspire.